


A Mortal Coiling

by myros



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Groundhog Day, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Physical Disability, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Substance Abuse, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 11:31:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myros/pseuds/myros
Summary: Tony Stark, a shell of his former self after the Battle of Earth, relives Peter Parker's eighteenth birthday over and over again.





	A Mortal Coiling

**Author's Note:**

> The fic is AU in two ways:
> 
> 1) Pepper wasn't pregnant in Infinity War and Morgan Stark was never born. Pepper's relationship with Tony fell apart shortly after he came back to Earth, and his five years before the Blip went drastically different (some of it will be explored in the story). The events of Endgame more or less happened the way it did in the movie, with minor details differing.
> 
> 2) Tony lived.
> 
> I did, like, minimal research for this fic, so inaccuracies of all kind abound!

_SNAP_.  
  
Tony Stark jolted awake to an ear-splitting _clank_ cutting through wall-shaking rumbles. His right hand flew to his left arm to feel nothing but skin and flesh. Overcame with momentary trepidation, he lay in bed as he registered reality; he wasn’t wearing the Iron Gauntlet. Thanos was dead, had been dead for a year and half ever since Tony snapped him and his alien army out of existence. He wasn’t at war. He was safe, alive, and in his penthouse master bedroom in Midtown Manhattan.  
  
Among shifting shadows, he located the source of the sound—a floor lamp by the windows that got knocked over when an aircraft swung low and around Stark Tower.  
  
“FRIDAY?” Tony spoke, his voice hoarse and raspy.  
  
“Good morning, boss,” the AI responded pleasantly. “It is currently 4:27 a.m., August 10, 2024.”  
  
Tony wasn’t supposed to be awake for another three hours, but he couldn’t go back to sleep now. He sat up in the dark, feeling every single one of his fifty-four years on earth in his joints and bones. The dull, heavy ache in his right arm and shoulder that ran all the way down to his hip was back. Worse yet, he could feel a migraine coming.  
  
“Would you like to review your itinerary for the day, sir?”  
  
“Go ahead,” he said.  
  
“Mr. Hogan is expected to arrive at 7:30 a.m. with your breakfast. You have your weekly Stark Industries conference call with Miss Potts at 9 a.m. and a physiotherapy appointment at 2 p.m. with Dr. Cho,” FRIDAY listed off. “It is also Peter Parker’s birthday. Would you like to select a present for him?”  
  
Peter. He had forgotten. How old was Peter turning? Seventeen? Eighteen?  
  
_Eighteen_. Eighteen, because he missed the kid’s seventeenth birthday last year when he was hospitalized, in a catatonic state from the _SNAP_ —  
  
—and his entire body convulsed violently as he fell back head first against the headboard and pillows.  
  
“Sir?” FRIDAY asked, alarmed. “My sensors tell me you’re in distress.”  
  
Tony answered with a painful wail.  
  
“Code Red Protocol Activated. Dialing Happy Hogan and—”  
  
“No, _don’t_!” he gasped through his tears, rolling over on his side as he rode out the waves of muscle spasms, trying to concentrate on anything but the agony. A present. For Peter. Peter’s birthday. Peter. Peter. Peter was alive. Peter was _alive_. _In, out, in, out, one, two, one, two…_  
  
Calming down from the sudden episode, Tony wiped the wetness from his face, panting heavily.  
  
With a trembling hand, he reached for the small plastic container of three round orange pills Happy had placed on his bedside table the night before. He dumped the painkiller tablets into his mouth and washed them down with the glass of water from the same table.  
  
“We’re good, FRIDAY.”  
  
“If you say so, boss.”  
  
What was he thinking about?  
  
Right, Peter’s birthday. He was supposed to upgrade Peter’s Iron Spider suit. He had taken the suit back with the intent of giving it a final upgrade as a gift, at first as a graduation present, but he hadn’t finished in time and decided to push it to Peter's birthday. Except, apparently, he'd missed this deadline as well, so he would need to get the kid something else.  
  
“What’s… what’s the most popular electronic thingamajig among ages eighteen to twenty-five right now?” he asked.  
  
“The StarkPhone Alpha 4 broke international pre-order records last month,” said FRIDAY.  
  
The new StarkPhone. He hadn’t designed that one, had just signed off on it on Pepper’s insistence. He wasn’t even sure if it was any good, having never beta tested it himself.  
  
Peter might like it. It wasn’t going to hit the market for another two months. The bragging right alone would surely be worthy of a birthday gift to a teenager.  
  
“Yeah, get that. For him. Have the final model shipped from the manufacturer. Half-day express shipping to May Parker’s address. Um, with a note from me,” he said, swallowing. “‘Happy birthday, Underoos.’ Um… ‘Wish you all the best in… in…’” He paused, struggling to recall which university Peter was attending at the end of the month but found his mind a fog. “‘…in life. Wherever that takes you. From TS.’”

-

“Tony?” Happy called out as he entered the penthouse, clutching a paper bag of bacon and egg sandwiches. “Tony, you’re supposed to be in bed still. Why are you up? How long have you been up?”  
  
“I’m fine!” Tony shouted from bathroom. He spat toothpaste foam into the sink and immediately started coughing.  
  
“Jesus, Tony!”  
  
Happy helped him rinse, wash, and dress, settling him at the breakfast table fifteen minutes later with a reheated sandwich and a cup of herbal tea that he wished was coffee instead.  
  
“Looks like a cane day.”  
  
“Don’t need the cane, Happy.”  
  
“You’re limping again, you need your cane.”  
  
Cue Happy producing the black cane from some unknown corner of the penthouse hallway and setting it against Tony’s chair. The cane’s custom-made red-and-gold painted brass handle mocked him where it rested. He swiped at it, and the thing fell onto the floor with a _bang_.  
  
“The grip cramps my hand.”  
  
“Well, you didn’t want the wheelchair.”  
  
He bit into the sandwich rather than argue as Happy cleaned up around the penthouse.  
  
“The lamp?” Happy asked from the bedroom, standing the fallen floor lamp upright.  
  
“Aircraft accident,” Tony said.  
  
“You took your pills. You know you’re supposed to wait until _after_ breakfast!”  
  
Tony ignored him in favor of the sandwich, which tasted like nothing. His muteness did not escape Happy, who sighed in resignation. Tony heard him refilling the pill container moments later.  
  
“So what do we got on the agenda today, boss?” Happy asked after scarfing down a breakfast sandwich of his own.  
  
“Just a call with Pepper,” Tony said and drank his tea. It was flavorless, despite the saturated appearance of the tea water. “You can go after this, take the rest of the day off. The weather’s nice.”  
  
“Please. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your two o’clock appointment.”  
  
“You need to reschedule that.”  
  
“We’ve already rescheduled it twice this week.”  
  
“I don’t feel like going today.”  
  
“You of all people should know you can’t always do what you feel like. Also, you left out the kid’s party. It’s at four at his aunt’s place in Queens, right after the doctor’s.”  
  
Tony shook his head. “I already sent a gift. I don’t need to be there in person.”  
  
Happy’s stare might as well have been burning a hole into his head.  
  
“Tony, this is Peter we’re talking about.”  
  
“Is there mustard in this sandwich?” he asked, even though there wasn’t. “Who puts mustard in an egg sandwich?”  
  
“Tony.”  
  
He tossed the half eaten sandwich back on the plate. “Don’t.”  
  
“He hasn’t seen you since you left the hospital, and not for a lack of trying,” Happy went on despite him. “For God’s sake, the kid’s been missing you like crazy. If you don’t show at his eighteenth birthday, it would crush him—“  
  
“I meant what I said, Happy!”  
  
Tony regretted raising his voice as soon as he did, watching his friend’s crestfallen face with pangs of guilt and shame.  
  
He turned away and gestured to the plate instead. “I’m done with that.”  
  
Happy cleared the table without another word.

-

On the balcony, Happy inhaled a cigarette and blew out a puff of gray smoke, staring into the distance with a somber wistfulness that Tony never came to associate with his friend before.  
  
_“Are you listening to me, Tony?”_ Pepper’s stern voice yanked Tony’s attention back to her ID picture on the StarkPhone holographic projection on the kitchen table. The time read 9:03 a.m. She’d begun the call detailing an acquisition of some kind of an emerging renewable energy startup, but for the last three minutes her words had gone in one ear and out the other.  
  
“Yeah, I’m still here.”  
  
_“Good,”_ she said, a little softer. _“So you’re okay with moving forward?”_  
  
“Whatever you think is good for Stark Industries is good enough for me, Pep,” he said.  
  
The Tony Stark from a lifetime ago would’ve word-vomit about how great of a job she was doing as CEO and chairwoman. Pepper, who had been the mastermind behind every SI decision in the last fourteen years, didn’t need to run anything by him.  
  
He knew that she knew; these weekly conference calls were their last ditch effort to try and stay in each other’s lives, if not as friends, then employer and employee.  
  
For a second, Tony retreated into that part of himself that hated. He hated with every fiber of his being Thanos and what that purple freak had done. Hated himself, because while Thanos had taken Peter from him, it had been himself who drove Pepper away. Tony could still remembered the day, the moment, eight months after he came back to Earth, when Pepper broke down and confessed at the height of his mania for time loops and multiverse theories that she wanted out. It had been the one ultimatum she’d ever issued in their relationship that he’d ignored; the final nail in the coffin and he’d been the one to hammer it in—  
  
_“I think this will be great for Stark Industries,”_ said Pepper presently, putting a stop to his spiraling thoughts.  
  
“Good.”  
  
There was a long pause on the other end.  
  
_“I know you’re focused on your recovery, but getting back involved in SI business may help you take your mind off things. You could start attending some of these merger events and meet our new partners. Perhaps not in an official capacity, if that’s too much right now, but even just showing up for a couple of minutes—“_  
  
“Pepper…“  
  
_“I know, I know you hate business functions, but these startup kids are all techies and scientists at heart. I think you’ll really like them. We’re having a signing ceremony this afternoon with a press conference after the negotiation finalizes, and then a small,_ private _celebratory—“_  
  
“Pepper.“  
  
_“It’s at five-thirty—“_  
  
“No.”  
  
Silence.  
  
_“I worry about you, Tony.”_ Her voice cracked when she spoke his name, and he hated the disappointment and pity she was trying so hard to mask.  
  
“I know.”  
  
_“You don’t have to come to the press signing if you don’t want. I just think—“_  
  
“I know you’re trying to help, honey. I appreciate it,” he said, and it was true, although he wished she would stop. Immediately.  
  
_“I don’t want you to ‘appreciate' it, Tony. That’s not why I—“_  
  
“You’re breaking up over here, Pep.”  
  
_“You can’t keep shutting yourself off like this—“_  
  
“Sorry, I… troub… hearing… you.”  
  
_“I’m not stupid, I know what you’re doing—“_  
  
He disconnected the call.

-

“Right here.”  
  
Happy rolled the Bentley to a stop in front of the Washington Square Park dog park, next to a bus stop. Tony got out of the backseat, cane hitting concrete, with tinted glasses, a baseball cap and the collars of his jacket turned up. He situated himself on the nearest bench as Happy shouted from the car window, “Don’t go anywhere while I park!”  
  
As Tony watched him settling in an open spot half a block away, a nearby golden retriever successfully caught a ball in mid-air with the complicated grace and style of a carnival acrobat and returned it to its human’s feet.  
  
“You’re such a good girl, Maisie!” the owner, a young woman in her late-twenties with pretty brown hair, cooed and praised, rewarding her dog with treats, pets, and peppering kisses.  
  
Tony contented himself with watching them until he caught sight of the Avengers shirt she wore. He began to turn away, but not before she caught his eyes.  
  
“Shit,” he muttered as her face lit up in recognition. She was walking over, Maisie the golden retriever in tow. He wondered whether he should make a run for it, but she got within speaking distance before he could make up his mind.  
  
“Are you Iron Man?” she asked in awe.  
  
“Not anymore.”  
  
“Oh. Well, I know you’re retired now. It’s just that I’m such a huge fan,” she gushed. “I hope I’m not bothering you or anything. I just want to say thank you so, so much.”  
  
“You don’t have to,” he assured her.  
  
“No, no, I do. I really do,” she said, starting to tear up.  
  
She suddenly looked embarrassed, wiping her face and trying her hardest to compose herself in front of him. It quickly became apparent to him that her tears were not the tears of an Iron Man groupie or a fanatic.  
  
“When… _It_ happened, you know, with the… It took my dog, and…” Her voice ended high as she trailed off, sobbing quietly.  
  
Uncomfortable, Tony trained his eyes on Maisie, who sat by her human’s side, joyous and oblivious to the whole exchange.  
  
“She’s my whole world. I’ve had her since I was sixteen, ever since my mom died, and when I thought I would never see her again, I… If you hadn’t brought her back, I don’t think—I don’t think I would be alive today—”  
  
“That was Bruce Banner,” he interrupted.  
  
“I’m sorry?”  
  
“The Hulk. His snap caused the restoration, the Blip. He’s the one you should thank,” he said. “Not me.”  
  
He could tell that she was confused, even hurt. She frowned at him, looking nervous and probably unsure how to reply. He wished that he had let her down gently.  
  
“Tony, I’m back,” Happy announced, coming up to the bench.  
  
“Sorry, kiddo,” Tony said to her, definitively ending their conversation.  
  
Quiet, she peered at him curiously, as if not believe a thing he said, but eventually got the message and tugged on her dog’s leash to leave. “C’mon, Maisie.”  
  
“You should be nicer to your fans,” said Happy as they walked away.  
  
Tony didn’t respond, instead finding his eyes drawn to the golden retriever with her high, wagging tail.  
  
How carefree and clueless she was, existing. He wondered if she was at all aware of the pain her human must have been in for the past five years that she was gone. Was there any part of her child-like animal mind that understood that she had died and been resurrected? Or was her time in the soul stone like a never-ending dream, as Peter and so many others had described it?  
  
He wondered what that never-ending dream felt like.  
  
“Boss, you there?” Happy asked, and _snapped_ his fingers by Tony’s face—  
  
Tony flinched away with a shudder. “ _Don’t_!”  
  
Happy recoiled, horrified by his mistake. “Shit! Sorry, I wasn’t thinking—“  
  
“Don’t do that to me again. _Ever_!”  
  
“I won’t, I promise!”  
  
Wheezing like he just ran a hundred miles, Tony closed his eyes and leaned his temple against the upright cane, clutching onto it like a lifeline.  
  
“Go,” he croaked out.  
  
“Go where?”  
  
“I don’t know, Happy.”  
  
Another second passed before Happy understood. “Fine. Want lunch early? I’ll grab lunch. How does a salad sound? Spinach? Caesar? Arugula?”  
  
“Any kind, with a side of pizza.”  
  
“Right, right,” he replied, standing up. “You stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”  
  
Happy ran off, but glanced back every five seconds to make sure that Tony was still on the bench until he was out of the park and across the streets.  
  
He ran down the block, stopped at a red light, glanced both ways, and disappeared around the corner.  
  
Tony was on his feet the moment he lost sight of him, his legs and cane carrying him out of the park in the opposite direction towards the Bentley Happy had parked half a block away.  
  
The car unlocked when its door handle scanned his bio-metrics—a feature the overly precautionary Tony Stark from ten years ago had installed in all his vehicles—and he settled in the driver’s seat.  
  
It was his first time behind a steering wheel since the Battle of Earth.  
  
Something in the car vibrated. He looked down to the source to see Happy’s StarkPhone Alpha 3 in the cup holder, and almost dismissed it until he saw the message.  
  
[Peter Parker] Just Now  
_what do you mean he’s not coming??_  
_what happen?_  
  
Tony gingerly picked up the phone, cradling it in his hands like it was some fragile newborn, eyes locked on the screen. He ran a thumb across Peter’s name as if there was anything to feel but the smooth aluminosilicate glass, and his chest tightened until he could hardly breathe.  
  
The phone vibrated again.  
  
[Peter Parker] Just Now  
_can i talk to him happy?_  
  
And twice more.  
  
[Peter Parker] Just Now  
_if he doesnt want to see me that’s fine,_  
_i just need to know he’s alright. tell  
him __i want to thank him for the new_  
_starkphone_  
  
[Peter Parker] Just Now  
_please let me talk to him im begging_  
_you_  
  
Before Tony knew it, his traitorous fingers had moved to unlock the phone and hit call. Peter picked up in half a ring.  
  
_“Hello?”_  
  
Tony’s breath caught in his throat, and every point of pain in his body ached upon hearing the kid’s voice.  
  
_“Happy, what’s going on? Is Mr. Stark there?”_  
  
_Say something. Say something, you useless invalid!_  
  
_“…Mr. Stark?”_ Peter’s voice was small, desperate and hopeful, and all Tony could see when he closed his eyes was the kid disintegrating into nothingness in front of him.  
  
He hung up, put the phone on silent, and threw it on passenger’s seat with the screen facing down.  
  
Another scan of his bio-metrics and the engine roared to life. Seconds later, with a foot on the pedal, he was on the road.

-

Tony cruised along with the midday Manhattan traffic, twisting and turning whenever there was a chance, until he was somewhere along the fringe of the island where both cars and people were sparse.  
  
This route seemed familiar; he was close to the Lincoln Tunnel.  
  
Perhaps he should cross the Hudson, go to New Jersey. Or Pennsylvania. See some farms and pastures. Maybe drive through Ohio. He’d never been before. Had no reason to go anywhere in the Midwest. No, wait. That wasn’t true. He’d been. Once. To Clint’s farm during Ultron’s short reign of terror. Where was Clint’s farm? Iowa? Missouri? If only he remembered so he could drive around so they wouldn’t have to see each other and remember how Natasha died—  
  
Tony slammed on the brake in the middle of the road, gasping for air. The car behind him _HONKED_ and rammed into his from behind, sending Happy’s phone into the abyss of the passenger side’s leg room. He dove after it out of some bizarrely protective instinct, his heart jumping to his throat. Around him, traffic slowed and more cars honked. The blaring commotion sounded almost muted to his ears as he struggled to focus on the moment, sitting back up.  
  
He first checked the phone. No damage. Peter’s messages displayed on the screen as normal.  
  
Then he checked the rear-view mirror for the vehicle behind him, and his heart sank at the revolving flashes of blue and red siren lights.  
  
An NYPD cruiser had been tailing him for the past who-knew-how-long, and he hadn’t noticed.  
  
Both officers were out of their car, the first one surveying the damage to the bumper, the other walking up to Tony on the driver's side, looking mighty pissed. Tony rolled down his window, trying to remember where the car registration might be. He certainly didn’t have his license on him; he wasn’t even sure if they hadn’t suspended it.  
  
The officer’s expression changed upon seeing who was driving. “You’re Tony Stark!”  
  
That got the attention of his partner, who came over as well.  
  
The two officers shared a look, the thoughts going through their heads written all over their faces: _Holy shit, it’s Iron Man!_ and _What are we supposed to do?_  
  
“Sir, please step out of your vehicle,” one of the officers finally said, clearly the senior, and the calmer and more rational of the two.  
  
Tony grabbed his cane—it didn’t escape his notice how they noticed it, exchanging another look—and got out.  
  
“I lost my driver somewhere downtown. He has all my information,” he said, glancing at the scratched bumper of the police car. The damage was minimal, perhaps even negligible. “If you need to book me, get me my lawyers first. Yada, yada, the whole nine yard.”  
  
“Mr. Stark, sir. You’re not in trouble,” said the second officer although the first looked uncertain about that. “Are _you_ okay?”  
  
“Me? I’m fine,” said Tony. “Peachy.”  
  
“Have you been drinking, Mr. Stark?” the first officer asked.  
  
“No.”  
  
“What about drugs?”  
  
Tony hesitated for a moment.  
  
“I had painkillers this morning.”  
  
The first officer looked Tony up and down, then at his cane, the gears turning in his head. His partner waited expectantly on him to reach the same conclusion he already did.  
  
“Malik…” _We can’t arrest Iron Man. Are you crazy?_ The words, although unsaid, hung in the air between them clear as day.  
  
As another rush of traffic passed around them, Officer “Malik” gave in with a mutter of “fuck it” under his breath.  
  
“We’ll get you home, sir. You’re clearly in no condition to drive,” he said, with a certain amount of resignation.  
  
A scan of Tony’s fingerprints to the bio-metrics reader later, the junior officer was commandeering the Bentley while Tony rode in the passenger side of the scratched up police cruiser, heading for Stark Tower. The digital clock of the car dashboard read 1:43 p.m. He was going to be late for physiotherapy.  
  
Above the dashboard clock hung two pictures; one was of the junior officer with three friends, possibly his brothers, all holding beers mid-toast; the other, a torn picture taped back together of Officer “Malik” with a woman and a young girl.  
  
Officer “Malik” caught him staring.  
  
“My daughter. She disappeared during the Decimation. Turned into ashes in front of me and my wife’s eyes. Came back five years later because of you and your friends,” he explained as Tony began noticing the officer’s sunken eyes and the tired lines on his face. “I don’t tend to take kindly to impaired drivers who get behind a wheel for the hell of it, Mr. Stark.”  
  
“Even-steven,” Tony muttered with a nod.  
  
“Even-steven,” Malik agreed.  
  
A long silence passed between them, but the way he kept glancing at Tony was as if he had something else to say.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You should answer your phone.”  
  
_What phone?_ Tony thought at the same time he became aware of Happy’s phone in his left hand, angled in such a way that Malik had a clear view of the screen; he had been clutching it ever since he got out of the Bentley.  
  
He flipped it over screen side just in time to see Peter’s name vanish. A missed call.  
  
He unlocked the phone and checked Happy’s recent calls; he’d missed thirty-eight calls from Peter. The kid had been dialing nonstop for the past two hours, he realized.  
  
Just as he was about to shut the phone off, Peter’s call screen came back, silent but ever so persistent.  
  
Tony’s thumb hovered between Accept and Decline, and came down on the former even as he wished he hadn’t.  
  
He lifted the phone to his ear, a pit of uneasiness growing inside him.  
  
_“Mr. Stark?”_  
  
_Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good,_ a Peter from long ago echoed in Tony’s head.  
  
_“Don’t hang up, please! Don’t hang up, don’t hang up, Mr. Stark, don’t hang up,”_ Peter in present time begged.  
  
Then he went quiet, so quiet that Tony thought they had disconnected until there was a loud sniff on the other end, followed by shuddering sobs, and all Tony wanted upon hearing those sounds from Peter was to die.  
  
_“I’m sorry,”_ said Peter, his voice breaking between each sob.  
  
_No…_  
  
_“I know you don’t want to see me or talk to me. I know you’re in a lot of pain and you don’t want to be around me because I remind you of bad things, and I’m sorry for even calling, but I just need to hear your voice.”_  
  
_No, kid, no…_ Tony fell his head back against the support of his seat, trying to steady his trembles as something squeezed in his chest. His vision blurred, and he closed his eyes and wiped at them.  
  
_“I miss you. Please, Mr. Stark…”_  
  
“Sir?” Malik asked. “Are you alright?”  
  
Tony hung up the phone and sat up, fumbling to release his seat belt. “Let me out, officer.”  
  
“We’re almost at Stark Tower. Whatever you need—“  
  
“Let me out! Please!” he shouted, a hand gripping the door handle as Malik pulled over. “I need to go now, I need to go…”  
  
He was out of the car before Malik even put it in park, the phone in his left hand and the cane in his right, hobbling as fast as he could toward the subway station up ahead.

-

The R train rumbled along the underground tracks.  
  
A little girl stared openly at Tony from the other end of the near-empty subway car, her tired mother paying no mind.  
  
He averted his gaze, adjusted the collars of his jacket, and lowered the bill of his baseball cap to cover more of his face.

-

The walk from the station to the Parker Residence should’ve only taken ten minutes, but took Tony well over forty. Worst of all were the stairs to the third floor. By the time he made it to the apartment, his lungs, right hip and legs felt like they were on fire.  
  
He stood in front of the apartment door at 3:27 p.m., fixated on the dull, peeling paint of the door frame, the will to move forward failing him; this was a bad idea and he should not have come. What was a middle-aged man doing at an eighteen year old’s birthday party anyway? What possessed him to come here in the first place when he had caused Peter so much hurt?  
  
_To apologize. To tell him it wasn’t his fault. To make sure he never feels that way again. Ever. You owe him that much, you can give him that much._  
  
_Can’t you?_  
  
He summoned what little courage that thought afforded him and rapped his knuckle on the door once, twice, his heart beating in his throat as he did.  
  
The door opened with Peter on the other side. His brown eyes, puffy and pink around the edges, widened upon seeing Tony.  
  
“I think I’m early,” Tony said.  
  
Wordless, the kid launched himself at him and clung on tight, as if not quite believing that Tony was there, his face buried awkwardly in the nook of his mentor’s neck; Peter had grown almost as tall as him since they last held each other.  
  
Tony let his cane fall to the floor and returned the embrace just as tightly, running his hand up and down Peter’s back in reassurance while the kid cried into his shoulder.  
  
“Happy said you weren’t coming.”  
  
“I’m here now.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”  
  
“Don’t be. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”  
  
It was then that he caught May Parker’s eyes across the threshold of the apartment. She looked back at him, her expression dark, solemn, and almost as hateful as it had once been five years ago when he returned to Earth without her nephew.  
  
“You gotta let go, kiddo. Your aunt’s getting jealous,” he muttered when she broke eye contact and disappeared.  
  
Peter cracked a chuckle, reluctantly peeling himself off. “I’m sorry I slobbered all over your jacket, Mr. Stark.”  
  
“Yuck.” He made a face and smiled back when Peter snorted and grinned at him like all was right in the world, and he couldn’t help but want to memorize every line of joy on the boy’s face as if it was the last he would ever see it.  
  
This was a happy Peter. A _living_ , happy Peter Parker. Tony’s chest ache at the sight, yet he couldn’t stop staring.  
  
“Mr. Stark, you wanna come in now?”  
  
Forcing himself to look away, Tony nodded.  
  
“Yeah, get that for me first?” He gestured to the cane on the ground. “I’m not supposed to trust my own center of gravity today. Might tip over if I move.”  
  
Peter picked it up with a frown.  
  
“You walked,” he said, handing it over. “I could’ve gone down and gotten you.”  
  
“And allowed myself to be carried up the stairs like some nubile bride on her wedding night? I don’t think so, Mr. Parker,” Tony teased, walking past him and into the apartment.  
  
Peter blushed crimson as he followed.  
  
The Parker Residence was just as he had remembered it. Small, clean, homely, with a faint trace of cheap apple-scented air freshener about. May Parker was busying herself in the tiny kitchen area, laying out the party food, plates, and utensils, her clothes covered in specks of flour and other food gunk.  
  
Peter helped him to the crowded kitchen table where a giant bowl of pretzels and a homemade birthday cake sat along with a variety of pots, pans, and god-knows-what. The cake, squarish, comically small for a party-size birthday cake, and leaning to one side despite being only one tier, was white with red syrupy drizzling on top that spelled “HAPpy BIRthday PETer” as if the writer started out with large letters but didn’t account for spacing and ran out of room.  
  
“May,” Tony greeted.  
  
“You look like shit, Stark,” she said back.  
  
“May!” Peter admonished her at the same time Tony said, “Can’t argue with that.”  
  
May withered under Peter’s disapproving frown before conceding with a polite smile.  
  
“We’re happy you’re here,” she said, and it sounded like such a lie that Tony had to hold back a scoff. Next to him, Peter flushed, lips pursed in displeasure.  
  
He had expected that to be the end of it, but then Peter dragged his aunt away with a quiet “excuse us” into another room and closed the door behind them. Tony sat, alone in a foreign space that all of a sudden felt that much more unwelcoming.  
  
In the other room, May and Peter argued in heated whispers, their voices never rising to an audible volume for more than a couple of words. Then…  
  
“So _what if I am_?” Peter shouted.  
  
Silence.  
  
“I’m sorry, May,” he said, his voice laced with misery. “I didn’t mean to yell.”  
  
She said something back.  
  
“I know, I know…” Peter answered, trailing off into whispers again.  
  
The two exited the room shortly. Both had been crying and trying hard not to look like it. May went back to organizing the party table as if nothing happened. Peter filled a glass with tap water and brought it over to Tony, who drank the water and felt slightly less dehydrated. He cleared his throat as Peter took the empty glass away.  
  
“Let’s talk about this interesting cake here for a second.”  
  
“It’s chocolate peanut butter with vanilla frosting, and the letters are cherry syrup,” said May with a hint of defensiveness. “If you’re allergic to anything, let me know.”  
  
“No, no, personal touch, great flavor combinations, it’s lovely. But a cake that size split between, I don’t know, fifteen, twenty teenagers—“  
  
“It’s just me, you, and three of my friends, sir,” said Peter. “Ned, MJ, and Flash from Decathlon. I’ve spoken about them to Happy from time to time?”  
  
Tony paused, confused.  
  
“I-I know you’re don’t like crowds anymore, so…”  
  
“Kid, this is _your_ birthday party, not mine.”  
  
Peter suddenly stared at the floor tiles as if they were the most fascinating things he’d seen all day.

-

The party guests started trickling in around four, with the first being Ned. “Happy eighteenth, buddy! I got you—oh my god, that’s _Iron Man_! That’s Iron Man _in your kitchen_!”  
  
The girl, MJ, arrived shortly after. She hugged Peter and May hello, then stopped in her track when she caught sight of Tony.  
  
“You must be MJ,” said Tony.  
  
She nodded, quiet with the strangest expression as her eyes flickered between him and Peter.  
  
“PENIS PARKER!” Flash Thompson shouted when Peter opened the door. “What’s up, shrimp? Happy birthday!”  
  
“Hey, Flash.”  
  
“I totally wasn’t going to show, but—“ He froze, bug-eyed, when he saw Tony, who gave a small wave. Then he spent another minute gaping like a fish.

-

Tony decided he approved of Peter’s friends—which meant nothing in reality but nevertheless gave him a peace of mind—as he watched the four teenagers squabble over the outcome of a game of Uno on the living room floor ten feet away. MJ won but Flash thought she’d cheated, which she did, blatantly and masterfully. Peter and Ned were doing their best to calm the two down. They were, comparatively to him, the Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper of Peter’s life.  
  
The kid was going to be alright, he realized with a crushing sense of absolute relief, with or without him.  
  
“You’re not quite the life of the party the tabloids made you out to be,” May Parker said, materializing in the kitchen in a new, cleaner outfit, sounding tired with a slight slur to her speech. “You’ve been here for, what, over an hour and you haven’t moved from the pretzel bowl.”  
  
“What can I say? I really like pretzels.” He reached over and popped one into his mouth. It tasted like salt and ash.  
  
She opened the fridge door. “Beer? I’d offer you shots, but then I’d have to go back to my bedroom to get the vodka.”  
  
_She’s drunk,_ he realized. He knew it had been something she’d picked up after Peter’s…after the Decimation, but he had chosen to ignore her downward spiral in favor of his own mental descent. Now he wondered exactly how bad her problem had gotten. Surely not enough to affect her nephew?  
  
“Oh, right,” she said, more to herself than Tony. “Peter told me about your pain medication. No alcohol for you.”  
  
She popped open a Modelo for herself and slid him a juice box.  
  
“He’s been keeping tabs on me?”  
  
“He wouldn’t have to if you’d talked to him.”  
  
Tony struggled the ridiculously small juice box straw out of its plastic wrapper.  
  
“I’m not here to fight with you, May,” he said.  
  
“No. Why are you here, Stark?” May asked, settling herself next to him at the table. “Guilt? Or because you actually give a shit about his happiness and well-being?”  
  
Tony poked the straw at the little white circle on the juice box, and missed. And he kept poking and missing.  
  
May took the long gap of silence as an invitation.  
  
“That boy—and don’t you think for a moment that he’s not a boy now that he’s eighteen, because he is—had been in tears since he learned you weren’t coming this morning,” she laid into him in a harsh, low whisper that somehow escaped even Peter’s heightened sense of hearing. “ _Tears_ , for the last year and half, beating himself over what he thought he did to you. Now as a citizen of this planet, I thank you, Stark, for being our all-hailed savior. Really, I do. And as his family, I thank you for bringing him back to me. But I wish with every fiber of my being that you hadn’t come today.”  
  
The plastic straw crumpled in Tony’s grip.  
  
“Because you being here? It’s giving him hope. And if one lousy afternoon is all the hope you can give that boy, then I wish you would've stayed away and broken his heart a little longer.”  
  
Finished with what she had to say, May downed the rest of her beer. Her words cut into Tony like a thousand knives and reverberated in his ears over and over, drowning out everything else.  
  
He barely registered her announcing that it was cake time, Peter talking to him, and Ned waving a hand in front of his face. Sound, sight… it was all a blur.  
  
“Mr. Stark, are you okay?” someone asked, but he didn’t catch who.  
  
“Peter, get in the living room with your cake!”  
  
“The candle wax is dripping on the frosting!”  
  
“Yeah, but Mr. Stark…”  
  
Tony squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus. When he opened them again, he was looking at Peter. The boy was holding his right hand and tugging at his sleeve, staring back and frightened. Seeing him like this, Tony gathered his strength and sat up straighter.  
  
“Mr. Stark…”  
  
“Caught a couple minutes of open-eyed snoozes there,” he lied. “Go on. Don’t let me hold up the party.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Bad hip. I’d rather not move.”  
  
The corners of Peter’s lips turned down and quivered. “I’ll bring you a slice?”  
  
Tony cracked a smile and nodded as he felt Peter’s hand leaving his own.  
  
Faraway, four off-key voices joined together and sang Happy Birthday around a brightly lit cake, clapping along to the tempo. The song ended in a chorus of overly enthusiastic cheers.  
  
Across the seemingly vast distance between the kitchen and living room coffee table, Peter’s brown eyes, golden in the candle light, met his, and Tony felt a phantom chill course through his being. He watched as the boy closed his eyes with hands together in prayer, mumbled a wish under his breath, and blew out all the candles in one prolonged puff.

-

“Do you think we were robbed five years?” MJ wondered out loud around a mouthful of cake.  
  
A heaviness settled in the room. Everyone went quiet. The taste of chocolate and vanilla cream soured in Tony’s mouth. Across the kitchen table, May cast down her eyes in sobering—literally, with the drunken flush fading from her cheeks—resignation.   
  
MJ pointed her fork in Peter’s general direction.  
  
“Because technically, this should be your twenty-third birthday, not eighteenth. We should all be twenty-three by now.”  
  
Tony’s stomach churned with nausea. For a while, nobody said anything.  
  
“Yeah, I still can’t get over the fact that half of our graduating class were kindergartners when we were in fifth grade,” Ned spoke up. “Remember Sarah Hutchinson from AP Chem? I used to have this huge crush on her? Well, I ran into her the other day in the grocery store while shopping with my mom, and she’s on her second baby now.” He shook his head. “It was so weird. And jarring. And unreal.”  
  
“My dad started seeing someone else after my mom and I disappeared. He was engaged to her when we came back,” Flash spoke up, pushing at specks of the chocolate sponge around on his plate. “It wasn’t his fault since we were dead and all, but…”  
  
He shrugged, swallowed, and wiped at his eyes. Ned reached over and pat him on the back as everyone politely waited for him to continue.  
  
“The worst isn’t even that he gave up on us. It’s the disconnect. Our entire family, out of sync by five fucking years.”  
  
“We were all robbed, not just us, not just the ones who disappeared,” said Peter.  
  
“Yeah, I suppose so. It just goes to show that everybody’s hurting,” said MJ. She then glanced over at Tony, and he suddenly realized what this was all about.  
  
In a moment of frustration, he wanted to scream, wanted to tell her that yes, he knew Peter was hurting. Yes, he knew it was his fault.  
  
But he chose to feign ignorance instead because what could that have changed?  
  
“Jesus, you kids are dark,” May said, standing up from the kitchen table and dumping the rest of her cake slice in the trash. “C’mon, you Debbie downers. This is a birthday party, not group therapy. Peter, you want to open your presents now? See what everyone got you?”  
  
Peter’s eyes lit up. Him and his friends stirred to their feet. “Yeah…”

-

Ned had gotten Peter the 7000+ piece Lego set of the Millennium Falcon.  
  
“Thanks man,” Peter said, and genuinely meant it.  
  
“Did you already open this one without us?” asked Flash, picking up an empty cardboard case hidden by the corner of one of the sofas. He turned the case, which had a minimalist design and a slick coating, this way and that. “You got a StarkPhone Alpha 4?! Mr. Stark, can I have a StarkPhone Alpha 4?”  
  
Flash was as soon distracted by the actual phone itself. The three teenagers crowded around Peter when he pulled out the next-gen StarkPhone, a bulky monstrosity between Peter’s slim fingers as the boy showed off its vectorized holographic capabilities and 8K camera resolution, going over all the specs and in-built functionalities not native to previous StarkPhone models.   
  
The kid looked happy and relaxed and in his natural element as he chattered about mobile tech to his equally geeky friends, but the only thought that ran through Tony’s head was, _Peter deserves better than a stupid phone._  
  
Why hadn’t he upgraded the Iron Spider suit? How was a mass-produced commercial-grade smartphone supposed to protect the kid from death and destruction and forces looking to break and kill him?  
  
_The Iron Spider suit was supposed to be an upgrade from his old suit, but that didn’t stop him from turning to ash in your arms, did it?_  
  
Tony suddenly felt sick.  
  
“Excuse me,” he said to May, picking up his cane. “Gonna get some air.”

-

A million trains of thoughts sped through Tony’s head as he hobbled down the stairs, one hand gripping his cane, the other the stair rail. The steps downward seemed endless, but he made it down to the first floor without stumbling or falling somehow. He threw his weight against the heavy glass front door and—  
  
Rhodey descended from the sky in the War Machine suit.  
  
Tony shifted his weight back and was about to turn back inside when his best friend disengaged the suit’s mask. “Don’t run away from me, Tones.”  
  
The War Machine suit easily held the door open for him, with Rhodey waiting on the other side.  
  
“How long have you been here?” Tony asked, limping out, trying not to let defeat seep into his voice.  
  
“A couple of hours. Since you got here, in fact. We didn’t know to trace Happy’s phone until the cops showed up at the Tower with your car. Once we figured you were heading to Peter’s, we decided to let you be,” Rhodey said. His restrained anger did not escape Tony's notice. “Happy’s parked a couple of blocks away. He’ll come pick you up once I’m done with you.”  
  
Tony shook his head, keeping his gaze on the cement, gumdrop-covered ground. “Don’t do this now, Rhodes—“  
  
“When, then, Tony?” his friend said, louder. “When you are going to wake the fuck up and realize that we’re trying to help—“  
  
“I’m wide awake, Rhodey!”  
  
“Are you?”  
  
Tony closed his eyes, fighting for breath, a dull ache beginning to pound in the back of his skull.  
  
“Look at me, man… Why won’t you look at me?“ Rhodey let out a deep, long sigh. The mechanical whirring of his moving suit grated against Tony’s eardrums. “What you did today was unacceptable, Tony. Happy thought you were kidnapped. Or worse. We all thought you were…” He stopped himself, as if he couldn’t bear saying what should’ve been the obvious next word.  
  
The silence stretched on between them instead. Tony could see out the corner of his eyes Rhodey’s tired face—the same face he’d seen on Happy earlier today, smoking on the balcony.  
  
_Say it, Rhodes,_ he wanted to tell him, to give him permission. _Say the word. Don’t be scared of it. I’m not._  
  
The front door flew open. “Mr. Stark!”  
  
Both men turned as Peter ran out, zeroing in on Tony before he noticed the War Machine and slowed down.  
  
“Mr. Stark, are you-are you leaving now?” Peter asked, shoulders drawn up as he approached Tony, flustered. “We, uh, May’s gonna serve dinner soon and I was hoping that- that you’d stay a little longer.”  
  
“I… um…” Tony’s mind blanked.  
  
Peter looked like he was going to cry all over again.  
  
How was Tony supposed to tell the kid that he didn’t want to go back in there? But that it wasn’t Peter’s fault? That he was the piece of shit here and Pete should just return his party and forget Tony ever came and tried to insert himself back into a life he had no more business being in?  
  
“Happy will be around,” Rhodey said before firing up all cylinders and flying away.  
  
Peter stepped closer and Tony stepped back with a shake of his head.  
  
“Mr. Stark, please.”  
  
“I have to go, Pete.”  
  
“I’m sorry about what May said—“  
  
“It wasn't her.”  
  
“—a-and what MJ said, and anything and everything we might have said that reminded you—“  
  
“It’s not— That’s not— Stop. _Please_.”  
  
Peter stopped, his bottom lip trembling as it met his top. He reached out and grasped Tony by the sleeve, careful, as if afraid that he would be pushed away.  
  
“I’m going to see you again, right?” he asked.  
  
Tony opened his mouth.  
  
Then closed it; if he answered yes, he would be lying.  
  
“Kid…” Talking was so hard. How did it ever get this difficult? “I can’t tell you that. I—“  
  
“I love you.”  
  
The declaration confused him for a solid moment before his brain caught up. He frowned, forcing himself to look at Peter, who stood in front of him as vulnerable as he’d ever seen the boy be, staring back at him with naked, desperate hope.  
  
And something else. Something that caused Tony’s insides to coil in disgust with himself.  
  
He waited for the boy to crack a smile, to clarify that it was a joke. To walk back his statement because Peter Parker was a verbal train wreck who could never quite get his mouth to express what he actually meant to communicate in the most critical of times. Nothing.  
  
“Tell me I’m reading this wrong, kid.”  
  
“I love you, Mr. Stark,” Peter said instead.  
  
“No… no.” Tony pulled back and turned away, his mind reeling. “Why did you say that? Why did you…” And he suddenly couldn’t speak anymore because everything hurt.  
  
“I love you,” Peter repeated with a sob.  
  
“Don’t.” He did this. He had to put a stop to this before it was too late. He _had_ to. May Parker was right that he never should’ve come. “You don’t want this.”  
  
“I do—“  
  
“No, you don’t know what you want!” he pushed back, louder and firmer than he’d ever thought possible. “I’m fifty-four years old, Peter. I’m three times your age, I’m old enough to be your father. Hell, I’d be older than your actual father had he lived. Have you thought about that?”  
  
Peter apparently hadn’t, if the way he blinked and faltered was anything to go by. But just as quick as the doubt came, it went. “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Yes, it does,” Tony snapped.  
  
“It _doesn’t_ and I don’t _care_ —” Peter started to shout.  
  
“Well, you know what does matter? _You_! You matter to me, and all I’ve ever wanted is for you to have the future you deserve!” he shouted back, stunning the boy into wide-eyed silence.  
  
All of a sudden, he wanted to say so much more. To tell Peter the utter despair he felt when he disintegrated in Tony's arms on Titan. The relief he felt when his first planted his feet on Earth upon his return. The frenzy he dived headfirst into when he found the first inkling of hope for reversing what Thanos had done. The numbness he chose to armor himself with when Pepper left him because he’d convinced himself, rightly so, that he couldn’t give up. The bitterness he’d swallowed to work with Steve Rogers again because he needed Rogers, and Peter needed him. The readiness to leave for that undiscovered country that had come so naturally when he’d held all six Infinity Stones in his grasp and _snapped_ Thanos into oblivion. All because Peter Parker had been restored to him, and Tony would’ve traded the whole universe before he’d let Peter be taken from him again.  
  
But he couldn’t say any of it. It would give Peter hope, and that would ruin him.  
  
“Look at me, kid,” he said instead, feeling like the strange calm before a storm. “I’m dying.”  
  
Peter shook his head profusely, a small whimper escaping his lips. “No. That’s not true.”  
  
“I’m not just dying,” he said, determined to ignore the boy. “I’m a dead man walking, I shouldn’t have even lived.” He pointed to his temple with a trembling finger. His own voice sounded hoarse to his ears. The lump in his throat felt like a stone weighing against his windpipe, obstructing every word he was forcing out of his mouth. “I can’t… I can’t form proper thoughts. I look at numbers and equations now and-and all I see are random shapes and squiggles. I can’t even recite the elements of the periodic table if you hold a gun to my head. I can barely drive a car.”  
  
Peter continued shaking his head, pleading for Tony to stop between sobs.  
  
“I haven’t seen my lab in over a year. I didn’t design the StarkPhone I gave you today; I have no idea how it even works,” he continued, struggling to speak as he did his best to keep his voice from wavering. If he stopped now, he would cave; the weaker man in him would do anything to make Peter’s suffering go away, consequences be damned. “I haven’t suited up since the battle because the mere _idea_ of the gauntlet on my hand paralyzes me. I can’t get out of the penthouse without Happy’s help, or god forbid, take anyone out for a goddamn meal, or hold a proper conversation because my own body and mind are _decaying_. And I’m saying all of this because I need you to understand that I have _nothing_ left of myself to give, to you, or to anybody else.”  
  
“I don’t believe you,” Peter wept, wiping away his tears furiously, stubborn.  
  
“It’s the truth, Pete.”  
  
“You’re wrong!”  
  
“It’s the _truth_!”  
  
Tony willed himself to calm down as he heard Happy pulling up behind him, the wheels of the vehicle making a gentle screech when they rolled to a stop. Peter lunged forward and wrapped his arms around him just as he moved to leave, clinging on the way he did on Titan, burying his face into Tony’s shoulder.  
  
“I don’t want you to go. Please, Mr. Stark, I don’t want you to go,” the kid babbled, tears and snot running down his face as he begged.  
  
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Tony said weakly. “You deserve better—”  
  
“I don’t want better. Just don’t leave, I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to go…”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Tony pried Peter off and pushed him away, his entire body numb except for the sharp throbbing pain in his chest. He got into the car without a look back, shutting the door in Peter’s face as the boy’s calls of his name rang in his head. The moment he sank into the backseat, every nerve in his body came back alive, the pain burning away the air in his lungs with a vengeance.  
  
“Boss?” Happy asked, anxious.  
  
“ _Drive_.”

-

Tony breathed laboriously, his head slumped against the back of the passenger seat. His throat was dry as a desert and he was cold despite the August heat and the sweat drenching his clothes.  
  
He did the right thing, he told himself, Peter will hurt for a while, yes. But eventually, given time, he will get over Tony. The boy was stronger than him, and better, and therefore deserved so much more. Someday Peter will see that and thank his former mentor for it.  
  
What was supposed to be reassuring thoughts only made the pain worse. Tony let out a cry as a new wave of heated spasms worked its way through his muscles, so much like the inferno power of the six Infinity Stones that consumed his flesh from the inside out. Anguish sobs and whimpers choked their ways out of his throat as he collapsed on his side in the backseat.  
  
“Hang on, Tony, we’re almost at the tower!” Happy said, speeding up.

-

Tony stumbled out of the penthouse elevator, gasping and wheezing as he made a beeline for his bedroom. It must have taken mere seconds, but felt like an eternity as his vision came and went like the gray static on old TVs. The pain burned under his skin the entire time, his lungs struggling to retain oxygen. His legs held on for as long as it took to reach his bedside table before he collapsed, his weak knees giving in right as his fingers closed around the pill containers. Leaning against the side of his bed, he fumbled with the container lid, groaning in pain and frustration when it wouldn’t open.  
  
“No! No pills! You’ve had your pills today!” Happy swiped them out of his hands.  
  
“Give them to me, Happy,” he rasped.  
  
“The doctor’s on his way, just hang on—”  
  
“ _Give them to me!_ ”  
  
“I can’t, Tony. This is morphine and you’re already on a high dosage—“  
  
“I’m in pain!” he shouted, though it came out as a gasp at most. His hand outstretched, reaching for the container at no avail. “Please, Happy. I can’t… Make it stop… Make it stop…” He squeezed shut his eyes at another wave of heated aches coursing through his body that quickly turned into debilitating agony.  
  
“Alright,” Happy said as Tony screamed and writhed on the floor, cracking open the pill container. “One. You get one to hold you over.” He placed the single tablet in Tony’s shaking hand. “I’m going to get you some water, okay? I’ll be back.”  
  
Tony brought the pill to his lips and shoved at it with his palm, but it fell on to the floor as he spasmed violently. He grabbed at it, this time with shaky but determined fingers, and pushed it past his teeth into his mouth.  
  
He couldn’t swallow.  
  
He hear the elevator opening with a _ding_.  
  
“He’s in the bedroom, Dr. Cho. Hurry!”  
  
He couldn’t swallow.  
  
“Mr. Stark?” Helen Cho’s face swarmed above him. Happy appeared right next to her soon after. “Shit! Help me lay him on his back.”  
  
“Tony, stay with us.” Happy sounded strangely echo-y. “You’re going to be alright, you’ll be alright.”  
  
_No, I’m not._  
  
Tony felt the pain slowly subsiding. His vision dimmed and darkened as he felt the back of his head gently hit the floor with a dull, faraway thud. Above him, Happy tore open his shirt while Helen Cho dug through her kit. Their movements were slow and slowing, and in that eternal second, he realized that this was it.  
  
“Goddamn it, Tony, don’t you dare! Tony, _Tony_!”

Happy's face was red and blotchy with tears. Tony wanted to reach out to let Happy know that it was going to be fine, that he didn't have to and shouldn't cry, if only he wasn't too far gone to even move. After all, he'd been living on borrowed time for the last year and a half. Happy knew this.  
  
Pepper knew this. So did Rhodey. That was why they were all so patient and careful with him, despite how much he caused them to suffer.

_But they'll be fine once you're gone, like Peter._

Peter… A twinge of regret entwined through Tony's thoughts as his last sight of the boy flashed before of his eyes.  
  
_I love you, Mr. Stark._  
  
He’d left Peter on the curb after crushing the kid’s heart to pieces, and now he was going to die on Peter's birthday.  
  
_I don’t want you to go_.

Tony's heart beat its final feeble beat.  
  
And just like that, there were no thoughts at all.

-

 _SNAP._  
  
Tony jolted awake to an ear-splitting _clank_ cutting through wall-shaking rumbles. His right hand flew to his left arm to feel nothing but skin and flesh. Overcame with momentary trepidation, he lay in bed as he registered reality, feeling his body ache all over; he was alive despite his fatal episode yesterday evening. Reviving him must have been no small feat of miracle on Dr. Cho’s part.  
  
He quickly located the source of the sound among shifting shadows—the same floor lamp by the windows that got knocked over yesterday.  
  
When an aircraft swung low and around Stark Tower, like it did again just now.  
  
An eerie chill ran down Tony’s spine.  
  
“FRIDAY?” he called out, hesitant, his voice hoarse and raspy.  
  
“Good morning, boss,” his AI responded, hers as pleasant as ever. “It is currently 4:27 a.m., August 10, 2024.”


End file.
